This morning's warm-up session is the final chance for the teams to try out their cars in race trim and make a final decision about race strategy. In truth, a two stop race is the just about the only logical route to take at Suzuka. The Japanese track is quite tough on tyres and also on brakes and fuel consumption. The reason the cars drink more juice here is partly because of the fact they have to power out of several low speed corners and accelerating hard from slow speeds means the engines use more fuel. The advent of traction control is another factor which increases consumption. So, if we assume everyone is two stopping, the only cat and mouse element to the strategy is when to make the stops during the 53 lap race. If one goes for a purely mathematical division, cars can stop on laps 17 and 34, but a more likely option is for the first stop to come in around lap 20 or 21.
While the Bridgestone runners will change tyres at every stop, there's a chance that the Michelin users might opt to stay on the same rubber at the front, throughout the race, or at least for two stints.